Intake Differences between Subsequent 24-h Dietary Recalls Create Significant Reporting Bias in Adults with Obesity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, 

Thank you for carrying out this analysis and preparing this manuscript. While an interesting hypothesis, the reason we suggest 24hr recalls is so we can capture variations and differences in day-to-day intakes. These variations could be explained also by lifestyle choices like adherence to religious dietary habits since the population is from Romania. What strikes most is how low the reported calorie intake is for an obese population. What also would be interesting to discuss is the differences between in-person and online reporting. Some studies show that people are more honest online but this is usually younger people. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and effort taken to review our work. This is much appreciated. Your comments have led to changes that have improved significantly this manuscript. Please find our answers below:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The objections I have to a given article begin with materials and methods, p.62....... I don't understand why I should look for another publication of the authors to find out something about patients and samples.

By the way, I do not understand how the results of the previous article and this one differ. In the elderly, the participants were evaluated overall and here are the same results divided into four 24-hour recalls?

Line 83….I do not know how this application works, but whether it calculates exactly the intake of calcium, vitamin C, folate and others I strongly doubt ..... but maybe I'm wrong.

Line 89…It is said that the patients had a blood sample and TAG and cholesterol were examined ... where are the data on these determinations?

Line 92 states that these investigations were carried out in accordance with the protocol (12), but the title of Article 12 is Development and Validation of a 413 LC–MS/MS-Based Assay for Quantification of Free and Total Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids from Human Plasma…………so what was actually investigated?

The results published in this article are rich, but evaluated by the application. If the results of the lipid profile before and after the experiment were documented for comparison, maybe they would be of some benefit to the given general practitioner ..... so I do not know what benefit such informations have.

The results only describe the differences between the individual 24-hr recalls. For me as a reader, this has no meaning.

Everything I agree with is described in the lines 342-347

Author Response

 

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and effort taken to review our work. This is much appreciated. Your comments have led to changes that have improved significantly this manuscript. Please find our answers below:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Introduction

The introduction is not sufficiently explained. Authors should add make a stronger case of why they are doing the study. You need at least one paragraph explaining the inconsistencies in reporting different nutrients.

 

Page 2, Line 46 and 47 – it is unusual to have one sentence standing alone as one paragraph. Connect this sentence to the previous or to the following paragraph. Ideally, add more studies here and make it a proper paragraph.

 

Page 2, Line 55-56 – Again one-sentence paragraph. This sentence could be the end of the previous paragraph. Authors should make a stronger background and offer hypotheses of the study.

 

Methods

Recruitment of Subjects – explain the inclusion and exclusion criteria here. It is not enough to state that it has been explained elsewhere. Also, add more details about participants so a reader has a clear picture of what the sample looks like.

 

Results

In Table 2 and 3, replace ; with – for 95% CI

 

Discussion

Because the discussion is too long, I suggest adding subheadings to make it easier to follow.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and effort taken to review our work. This is much appreciated. Your comments have led to changes that have improved significantly this manuscript. Please find our answers below:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors evaluated the consistency of reported energy, macro- and micronutrient intakes in the series of four 24-hr recalls in adults with obesity and found that there is a reduction of the intake in the second and fourth 24-hr recalls. The paper is well written, with objectives and clear results. But, few minor changes should be made.

• Please format the tables. The authors made the tables in the frame format. Tables do not have internal and vertical lines
• Table 2 - The results should be described with mean and standard deviation with value of P or median and interquartile interval
• Table 4 - In the table is described: "Difference Between Mean of Four 24-hr Recall and Mean of Three 24-hr recall after exclusion of" but the authors do not describe the value of this difference. Please consider in the table the difference values
• Line 244,245- What consistency tests were performed? Clarify the Statement
• Did you guide the volunteers you call them to make the memory throughout the week? If so, this may have been the factor that influenced. As volunteers knew that you call, they may have reduced or improved feeding when the second recall was done. Thinking that they would not be evaluated again, they return normal food and therefore the third recall approaches the first. And when they realize that the evaluation did not finish, they further improve the feeding and with this there is a reduction in the fourth 24h-recall again.
• Line 339-340 - I did not understand. Did not the authors say we should not exclude? please clarify

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and effort taken to review our work. This is much appreciated. Your comments have led to changes that have improved significantly this manuscript. Please find our answers below:

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Although I think that such work is of little value to scientists, it contains a number of results which, as the authors themselves stated, are only a pilot study.